Lexicon

A lexicon is a roadmap that guides you through the process of using language and vocabulary to share the moods and personalities of your brand.

It’s nothing too fancy: just a simple document that contains key words, phrases, sentences and principles that - if you use them consistently - will help you connect with your right people, and remain memorable to them.

In this activity, we are going to take the answers you entered into Workbook 2 this week, and use them to build a lexicon that you can use for your brand.

Open the Lexicon template I sent you via email at the start of this week, and save a copy to your own documents. Then simply cut and paste the answers from Workbook 2 into the template as follows:

  • Lexicon page 1

    Replace “Your Name” with your own name, or the name of your business

  • Lexicon pages 3-5

    * Column 1: Replace the “mood word” heading with “Mood word: [your word],” using one of your mood words. Underneath it, copy and paste what that mood word means to your audience

    * Column 2: Replace the “language principle” heading with “Language principle: [your principle],” using the corresponding language principle. Underneath it, copy and past the “flesh it out” details you noted in your Workbook

    * Column 3: Leave the heading “Implications” as-is. Underneath the heading, copy and paste the language implications you noted down in your workbook to match that language principle

    Repeat this process for all three pages, to capture the language and implications of all three of your Language Principles.

  • Lexicon page 6

    In the bold heading, complete this sentence: Write in a [enter the three "voice" words from Workbook 2, pg 12] tone of voice

    For example, “Write in a warm, friendly and emotional tone of voice”

    Underneath, copy and paste the “brand-voice in action” demonstrations you wrote in the previous exercise (Workbook 2, page 12).

  • Lexicon page 7

    On this page of your lexicon, you’re going to give an example of your brand voice. It will serve as a useful reminder to you in the future, but will particularly come in handy if you need to share this lexicon with someone else who will be writing on your behalf, and who needs to understand how your brand feels.

    For this, you’ll need to go back to Workbook 1. Under the heading “Write this way” in your lexicon, copy and paste the invitation you wrote in your own tone of voice (bottom of page 35).

    Next, under the heading “Not this way,” copy and paste the practise invitation you wrote on page 34 that is least like your own voice.

  • Lexicon page 8

    Now back to Workbook 2. Copy and paste all the words and phrases you noted down on page 5 of your Workbook, into your Lexicon on page 8.

  • Lexicon page 9

    These are your standard brand protocols.

    You already answered some of these questions in Workbook 1, on page 36. For the rest, simply keep/adapt/delete as you feel is appropriate for your verbal brand protocols. The goal is to pick one "rule," and then be consistent in all your writing.

  • All pages

    Replace the images and colours in the Canva template with images and colours from your brand’s visual style, so it truly feels like your own.

Congratulations, your lexicon is done. Read over it one more time to be sure it’s all consistent and to check for typos, and save it. Now you can click “share” to download the Brand Lexicon to your own files and use it whenever you need to.